:The Laurel Outlook:News

David Howard, 61, of Park City, a self-employed consultant/trainer who helps companies prevent wrongful acts, has filed as a Republican candidate for House District 60 which covers Stillwater County, and the precincts around Greycliff and Roscoe. Incumbent Rep. Jack Ross (R-Absarokee) is not seeking re-election to that seat.

Howard is a Vietnam era veteran, and a former FBI agent. He was stationed in Billings in the mid-70s for three years. When he left the FBI, he was chief of law enforcement with the Bureau of Land Management in California. He was an internal investigator for an electric company and started his own investigation business in Sacramento, CA. He has a Bachelors Degree in Criminology and a Masters Degree in Public Administration. He is a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), and an avid outdoorsman.

Howard and his wife of 34 years, Carla, have six daughters. Two were born in Montana and four of them and their families live here. His Montana history began in the late 30's when his grandmother worked as a camp cook and my step-grandfather was a ranch hand on ranches east of Dillon and north of Livingston, he said.

He said he is running to keep Montana from turning into another California. “During the last two legislative sessions there are those in political power in Montana who have been trying to turn Montana into a state like California. California's government is morally and financially bankrupt, and has slowly taken most of its people's freedoms away by taxing and regulating them in every conceivable way,” he lamented.

“Those in power in Montana had a $1.4 billion surplus, but sponsored tax increases to place a heavier financial burden on individuals, families, and farmers/ranchers/businesses. They further stymied attempts to return to families and individual taxpayers a fair amount of the surplus monies in our treasury which would have equaled about $4,000 per taxpayer. Instead, they returned about 7 percent of the $1.4 billion surplus ($400) to only home owners and were successful in using $1.3 billion to increase yearly spending for most state agencies by an average of 37 percent while hiring 1,000 new State Government employees. In other words they spent $1.3 billion of your money, our states savings, to forever enlarge Montana's government and entitlement programs,” stated Howard.

“They even tried to damage the natural family by attempting to create civil unions between same sex partners and covertly tried to make it mandatory for the homosexual lifestyle to be taught in our schools,” Howard asserted.

“And they failed to address the more serious issues like energy development, water rights, lowering the cost of health care and college tuition, and stopping illegal immigration in Montana,” he said.

“It is common knowledge that our greatest resource in Montana is her people. Our greatest treasure is individual freedom. The most precious gift in the entire world is human life. The greatest good is to serve our fellow man and the greatest tragedy is the refusal of the American people to get involved on behalf of those who will come after us. If you elect me to House District 60, I will do everything in my power to keep our Montana freedoms alive,” he concluded.

Howard can be contacted at d.howard@usadig.com, written to at P.O. Box 129, Park City, MT 59063, or called at 633-2765.